The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday welcomed Slovenia’s plan to establish a representative office in Taiwan, after Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa revealed the plan in an interview with Indian TV station Doordarshan on Monday.
Taiwan is a democratic country that respects international democratic standards and international laws, the Slovenian prime minister said in the interview.
Slovenia and Taiwan are working on “exchanging representatives,” he said. “Of course, this will not be on the level of embassies. It will be on the same level as many of the EU member countries.”
Photo: screen grab from Doordarshan
“When I spoke with our businessmen who are trading with Taiwan, they told me that we are trading with Taiwan, but those companies from Taiwan are also trading with mainland China... They are doing this amongst themselves, but at the same time they’re opposing the same relations between Taiwan and other countries, which is ridiculous,” he said.
While the naming of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania has sparked some criticism in the EU nation, Jansa said that he did not consider it an issue.
“Lithuania is not an exception. There are some slight differences in naming the missions, but this is not important,” he said. “I think that any kind of proceeding pressure on Lithuania and some other countries in Europe will not benefit China’s government. Good trade relations are a common interest.”
After witnessing Taiwan’s disease prevention measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jansa said he personally called Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) and they spoke via videoconference.
“Actually, we have normal relations with Taiwan,” he said.
Jansa said that he had visited Taiwan four or five times, and that he holds the view that Taiwanese should have the right to determine their future.
“If they want to join China, if it’s their free will without any pressure, without any military intervention and without any blackmailing, without strategic cheating as it is happening in Hong Kong currently, then we will support it. But if Taiwanese people want to live independently, we are here to support also this position,” he said.
“India is a crucial factor here to guarantee the balance of power and with this, the very foundation of possible peaceful solutions,” he added.
Jansa also backed Taiwan’s bid to join the WHO, saying: “I think it would also benefit China to have a neighboring country be a member of such an organization.”
Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) yesterday at a news conference in Taipei welcomed the Slovenian government’s plan to open a representative office, adding that the ministry appreciated Jansa’s “insightful” remarks.
“Prime Minister Jansa is a good friend of Taiwan and has visited the nation several times,” she said, thanking him for speaking the truth on international issues.
Taiwan and Slovenia have close economic and trade interactions, while their health ministers have shared their experiences with the pandemic via videoconference, she said.
The government would continue to deepen the nation’s relations with Slovenia and other democratic partners to develop mutually beneficial and resilient partnerships, Ou said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying